45. A Gamble Against Time (4)
An ordinary mage can only obtain a license as a “magic warrior” after finally reaching the level of 3-Class.
If you assume that people of average talent, putting in ordinary effort, reach 3-Class in their late twenties to early thirties, then the path of a magic warrior is far from as easy as it might sound.
And becoming an official magic warrior is not the end of it, either.
Only by building up one’s credentials while taking on missions, and by ceaselessly devoting oneself to study and training, could one barely achieve 4-Class. By then, several years had already passed, and it was said that one would finally begin to receive a certain amount of respect within a Magic Tower or guild.
So, put another way, reaching 4-Class “normally” required an immense amount of effort and a great deal of time.
“Ah, I’m serious, okay? Ahjussi. You can’t trust what people say?”
“Hah. These little brats…”
Gerawin, the branch chief of the Lahendark branch of the Iron Pine Adventurers’ Guild, looked at the two girls before him without even trying to hide how troubled he was.
“So then. Both of you are 4-Class mages… and you want me to let you join the Karakorn Mountain expedition?”
“Tsk, like I can just believe that…”
The other adventurers waiting inside the Iron Pine guild office also kept glancing over at the two girls.
One had a refreshingly cool hair color that looked like a blue waterfall pouring down, and the other had a neat black bob. Both girls were so beautiful that even adults would do a double take.
They attracted attention from all directions just by standing still, and on top of that, they were claiming to be 4-Class mages, so naturally even more eyes were drawn to them.
“Can’t you see the Shtella uniform? Look at this. Shtella, Shtella. I’ve even got the pocket watch right here.”
As the black-bobbed girl, Flame, pronounced it with sticky emphasis and thrust forward the Stella pocket watch, Gerawin took it with an uneasy expression.
Then his eyes widened.
“This is… real.”
“Right? You can tell that much, can’t you?”
“Yeah. I understand well enough that you’re from Stella. But… that’s separate from whether I can believe that mere first-years are 4-Class.”
Flame and Eizel’s faces had appeared in newspapers a few times, but people in the world did not memorize every face that showed up in the papers.
On top of that, official mages had their licenses renewed each time they achieved a new Class, but students had not yet been formally issued licenses, so the problem was that Flame and Eizel had no other way to prove their abilities.
And that made sense. Cases of children in their teens reaching 3-Class were extremely rare, and at most they only came out of one of the Five Great Prestigious Magic Schools like Stella, so there had never been any legal regulation established for it in the first place.
“Ugh, seriously, you suffocating Ahjussi!”
Feeling like her insides were completely blocked up, Flame thumped her chest several times.
It had been all well and good when they strode out of Stella, boldly declaring that they would find the relic of Silver Age November.
But even though both Flame and Eizel were 4-Class mages, they were still young and inexperienced, and traveling alone through dangerous areas as just the two of them would be inefficient, so they had decided instead to attach themselves to an expedition party.
As luck would have it… there had been an expedition with a purpose similar to theirs being organized continuously for the last several years.
However, there was one thing she had overlooked: society was harsher on young mages than she had expected.
“Mmgh, even if it were true, you two are too young. There are times when Stella students are dispatched because they say they want missions, but even then, they’re at least second-years.”
At this point, even Flame began to catch on. Gerawin seemed reluctant to casually stick heavyweight students from Stella into the expedition party.
If some kind of accident happened, the fallout might splash onto him for no reason.
When Stella cadets were dispatched, there was a clause stating that they themselves bore responsibility for any injuries they suffered, but even so, it seemed there was no helping the anxiety.
“Ah, damn…”
Flame pressed her pink lips tightly together and swallowed down her frustration when, from a table some distance away, a dark-skinned woman who had been drinking strong liquor alone rose to her feet and said:
“Gerawin. Let’s just take them.”
“Kayla… what are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“I’m interested in those little brats. I’ll take responsibility. Hm?”
“You’ll take responsibility?”
Pff.
Gerawin looked back and forth between Kayla and Flame, then let out a heavy sigh and nodded.
“Well, if you say so… I mean, if they’re really 4-Class magic warriors, then even if they don’t have experience, they’ll still be a major help to our fighting strength…”
“A wise choice, Branch Chief!”
Wham!
“Ghk!”
After slapping Gerawin hard on the back, Kayla strode over to the two girls, threw an arm over their shoulders, and shoved her face close.
“Well then, to celebrate our new companions, shall we go have a drink?”
“…We’re minors.”
“Ah, what does that matter!”
Eizel found this woman called Kayla oddly uncomfortable, but Flame beamed brightly, clasped Kayla’s hand firmly with both of hers, and shook it enthusiastically up and down.
“Let’s have a drink together, Unnie!”
“Yeah, this little sister clicks with me!”
“Of course!”
And then, the next morning.
“Gkuhhh…”
As she stared at Flame, who had gotten absolutely plastered despite being a minor, Eizel let out a deep sigh.
“If we get caught, we’ll be suspended…”
She had definitely warned her, but Flame had said something ridiculous about how “my heart is already an adult,” then proceeded to pour alcohol into herself like an idiot. Judging by the way she drank as if she’d done it before, she must have been a delinquent student, no question.
“Good grief.”
After straightening Flame out on the bed—she was sleeping in an almost artistic pose with only half her body on it—Eizel left the room to go take a shower.
When she stepped outside the inn, Kayla, who had drunk herself senseless with Flame the night before, was crouched in front of the main building with a deathly expression, smoking a cigarette.
“Oh, cutie. You up?”
“Yes. Is your stomach feeling a little better?”
“No. I feel like I’m dying.”
“…We’re leaving right away today, so why did you overdo it like that?”
“Oh? You worried about me?”
“It’s not that…”
Kayla took a deep drag on her cigarette, blew out a large cloud of smoke, and stood up.
“Kid. Do you know why I said we should take you two with us?”
“Huh? Well… I’m not sure…”
“I’d seen your faces in the newspapers a few times. Seems those blockheads don’t even read the papers properly.”
“Ah, ah… is that so…”
“Yeah. So I got curious. I wanted to see what those famous Stella cadets would be like in the Karakorn Mountains. You do know why we’re going on this expedition, right?”
“Of course.”
The Karakorn Mountains had long been famous for countless inexplicable phenomena.
Whole groups of adventurers would disappear, only to reappear ten years later in the same place without having aged a single day. A little child’s diary, written three years in the future, would be found discarded on the ground.
And besides that, there had even been accidents where objects falling through the air froze in midair for years without moving at all, only to suddenly drop one day and kill a climber. There were also cases where objects believed to have been made in the distant past were discovered looking as new as if they had just been crafted. It was, in every sense, a place overflowing with mysteries.
Up to now, countless adventurers had challenged the place in order to uncover its secrets, but more often than not, they returned empty-handed, having found nothing at all.
That was why, recently, expeditions were no longer formed very often. There was simply nothing to gain there.
“Well… if not for the recent disappearance cases, we wouldn’t be doing this pointless crap either.”
In truth, the reason expeditions like this got organized was obvious. The children of powerful people would go missing, and wealthy patrons, grasping at straws, would commission adventurers.
Magic warriors and mages who went on adventures were clearly classified differently from the outset.
Unlike magic warriors, who destroyed Persona Gates and hunted dark fiends, adventurers specialized in dealing with mysterious incidents like these…
And yet even those adventurers had apparently thrown up both hands and both feet at the mystery of the Karakorn Mountains.
“Pointless… crap?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Even if we go, it’s obvious it’ll just be another wild-goose chase.”
She flicked ash from her cigarette.
“This is my twelfth year doing mercenary work, and this is already my fifth trip to Karakorn. And every single one was a bust. There’s just nothing you can actually find out there.”
The adventurers probably didn’t know it, but there was a high chance that the true cause behind the inexplicable phenomena occurring in the Karakorn Mountains was the relic of Silver Age November.
Eizel knew that fact, but even so, there was nothing she could really do differently.
Just because she knew what was there did not mean there was any guarantee she could find it.
“That’s why, this time, I want to try taking you two along.”
“…Pardon?”
“I figured if you’re Stella cadets, your brains ought to work damn well. And besides, the rumors say both of you are geniuses that maybe only come around once every thousand years.”
“Th-that’s way too much of an exaggeration.”
“Hahaha, getting shy, are you? Anyway, I’m counting on you this expedition.”
After saying that, Kayla headed back into the inn.
“Whew…”
Even Eizel knew well enough that, after joining this unfamiliar expedition party, it was fortunate that there was at least one person who treated them kindly.
‘But why do I feel so uneasy…’
What is this?
This strange, ambiguous feeling.
She still didn’t know.
In the end, Kkotseorin’s judgment had been right. It turned out that, even without a fistfight or duel, simply spending time together in the city late at night was enough to draw out a resonance with the relic.
As a result, I was able to successfully absorb part of Kkotseorin’s power.
[You partially absorb the ‘Blessing of Crimson Spring March’ from Kkotseorin.]
The moonlit night faded, and the sun rose.
In the early dawn, while everyone else still slept,
Kkotseorin secretly removed her veil and welcomed the warm sunlight. Watching her stand there with both arms spread as though she intended to embrace the sun itself, the first thing I felt was an overwhelming sense of fulfillment.
However, not everything was good news.
[Warning! If you absorb any more of the target’s power, a curse brand may occur.]
In the end, I had reached my own limit as well.
I still had not completely absorbed Kkotseorin’s curse, and yet I had taken in the Blessing of Crimson Spring March so deeply that even my Mana Leakage Body could no longer bear it.
[The Blessing of Blue Winter December protects you from excessive energy!]
Thankfully, another of the Twelve Divine Months’ blessings prevented that excessive energy from filling me up too much…
But this much is not enough.
At a minimum, I’ll need to receive Kkotseorin’s blessing at least two more times in the future, and it will still take me at least several more years before I’m fully grown.
‘How in the world did Flame do this?’
In the original game, “the character Flame” is said to have resolved Kkotseorin’s curse all at once in the story.
Probably… this is just a guess, but.
I suspect she completely conquered Kkotseorin’s heart with the power of love, and then used that intense emotion to overcome the curse of Crimson Spring March.
What, you think that sounds absurd?
Let’s not ask too much of a romance fantasy game. The word “romance” is already fantasy enough to begin with, and then they went and added the word “fantasy” one more time, so naturally this world is full of things that make no sense.
“Are you alright?”
“Mmm… yes… I feel wonderful…”
Kkotseorin smiled as she basked in the warm sunlight. For someone like me, stealing her heart was impossible.
So I’ll have to resolve her curse in my own way.
I need growth.
Explosive growth, at that—enough to withstand Kkotseorin’s curse.
But… the more you rush growth, the slower it becomes, and only by taking the long way around can it be built up bit by bit.
In that case, there was only one method left.
…To accept the power of another Twelve Divine Months.
You think it’s too hasty? I’ve already met two members of the Twelve Divine Months and accepted their power.
Absolutely not.
I think the Twelve Divine Months are the key to guiding this world in the right direction.
So, before I graduate, I intend to meet as many of the Twelve Divine Months as I can.
Even right now, there are already a few of them I can go visit and meet, even if I cannot receive their blessing immediately, so it isn’t some vague impossibility.
‘Just going to meet them should be fine.’
The remaining summer vacation isn’t that long anyway, and I don’t expect I’ll be able to turn the heart of one of the Twelve Divine Months and receive a blessing in such a short span of time.
For now, I’ll be satisfied just meeting face-to-face and raising my favorability a little.
So then, the next member of the Twelve Divine Months I’ll meet is…
‘Silver Age November.’
A very special Divine Moon who possesses the extraordinary power to govern silver time, yet hides all of that power and slips into the mortal world to live among ordinary people.
I decided on that person.
